Much Ado about Macbeth

by Randy McCharles

It was after Susie was old enough for Sylvia to return to work that Paul noticed that their family was drifting apart. Paul had his teaching, Sylvia sold houses, and Susie had her friends at school. Rare was the time that any of those lives intersected anymore. Paul had no idea what to do about it, and it was killing him.

  Other teachers at Ashcroft had told him that this was normal, a phase of family life that hit everyone. It would last until Susie’s first child was born and he and Sylvia became grandparents. Fawning over grandchildren would draw them together again.

  Paul couldn’t even imagine Susie having a child. She was seventeen. Still a kid. And people were getting married and having children later in life than when Paul and Sylvia were wed. Would their marriage last until Susie had children? The thought of losing his family tore him up inside.

  Would spending a few minutes with his wife’s friends from work make Sylvia happy? Or would he embarrass himself so badly that they’d encourage Sylvia to leave him? Paul could never find a right answer.

  The only thing Paul knew that he was any good at was teaching drama.

  He finished making his cast list in descending order of lines spoken then added a few audition lines for each role, focusing on dialogue that exemplified the passion and personality of each character. After reviewing his list carefully, he performed the part of his job that he was most uncomfortable with. He opened the Web browser on his computer and logged into the school homework Web page.

  Paul considered himself a Luddite when it came to computers. After much pain and anguish, he had learned to use a word processor, which was essential these days for teaching in a public school. Even so, the Internet still put the fear of God in him and no part of the Internet more so than the Ashcroft Senior High School Web site.

  After much poking and prodding and starting over several times, he found the page for his third-year drama class and, on the second attempt, managed to upload his audition list. He checked his watch and found he had posted the list ten minutes before he had told his students it would be available. Success!

  Tomorrow he would learn if any of them had bothered to check the list and practice the lines. It would be interesting to see if he had correctly guessed which student would audition for which role.

  With no good reason to further avoid Sylvia’s friends, Paul found himself trembling at the thought of trying to make small talk with a bunch of strangers. Maybe he’d make himself a sandwich first.

  Scene 8: The Vile Blows and Buffets of the World

  Next day at class, Paul was relieved to discover that the PTA was not waiting to lynch him in the auditorium. Perhaps Lenny was good for something after all. Maybe he had convinced his mother to find some other failure of the school system to repudiate.

  While the students wandered in, Paul set up his folding director’s chair and pulled his Cecil B. DeMille megaphone from the locked cabinet in the backstage storage area. He didn’t need either of the stereotypical accoutrements, but the students always seemed to expect them. Theatre was, after all, theatre.

  “Audition time,” he said through the horn, and the students stopped their chatter. “You are all third-year students. In the past, I assigned you roles based on what I thought would help you best. But now I have to prepare you for the real world. Out there, no one is going to call you up and offer you the lead in Tony and Tina’s Wedding.” He glanced at Lenny. “If you want a role, you are going to have to audition for it. Auditions start now.”

  The groans in the room were silent yet visible on his students’ faces.

  “First up is the role of Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, a brave and loyal man who succumbs to his ambitions and commits murder. In essence, he falls off the straight and narrow and cheats to get what he wants. Who is trying out for the role?”

  Several boys stepped forward, the quickest of whom was Lenny. Paul was not surprised.

  “Okay, Lenny,” Paul said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  The twelfth-grade student struck an impressive pose, his expression one of fear and perhaps even desperation.

  “It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:

  Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;

  Augurs and understood relations have

  By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth

  The secret’st man of blood. What is the night?”

  The class offered some halfhearted applause.

  “Thank you, Lenny,” Paul said through the megaphone. “Kim, how about you?”

  Kim Greyson, an athletic boy with sandy-blond hair, stepped forward and gave a poor and obviously unpracticed imitation of Lenny’s pose. He spoke the words with little emotion and stumbled on “secret’st.” It wasn’t the worst Paul had seen.

  “Thank you, Kim. William? You’re up.”

  William Page’s performance was marginally better than Kim’s, but he stuttered the lines and got lost after “magot-pies” and was unable to finish. After William’s classmates stopped laughing, Paul said, “Good try. John?”

  The final applicant for the role twisted his foot against the floor and said, “I, uh, think I’ll try for a different part.”

  Paul was not surprised. During the previous two years, Paul had watched John Freedman habitually bite off more than he could chew. At least he had backed off early this time.

  “Okay. Fine. Next up is Lady Macbeth, Thane Macbeth’s ambitious wife who pushes her husband to commit murder, only to suffer a mental breakdown over it and commit suicide. Who wants the role?”

  Two girls stepped forward. One was Gemma Henderson, whom Paul expected to not only try out for the role but win it. The other girl was—

  “Susie? What are you doing here? You’re not in this class.”

  Susie Samson, Paul’s daughter, who had never shown any interest in drama and had not taken his class in grades ten and eleven, stepped forward and handed him a slip of paper. “I have a note.” It was from Principal Winston.

  Paul scanned the note quickly then read it through more carefully. When he was done, he counted to ten; it wouldn’t do to show his anger in front of his students. Then he said, forgetting to use his megaphone, “Susie will be joining our class for the rest of the year. Gemma, you can go first.”

  Gemma Henderson was not so much an actress as she was an outgoing person, a girl who thrived on being the centre of attention and knew how to smile and make her eyes big on demand to get it. Excellent skills to have but not enough on their own to make someone a good actor. Gemma struck a pose, not unlike that struck by Lenny playing Macbeth.

  “Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why,

  then, ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my

  lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we

  fear who knows it, when none can call our power to

  account?—Yet who would have thought the old man

  to have had so much blood in him?”

  Paul had to think about this one. It wasn’t bad, but something about Gemma’s performance screamed newscaster. And it was a little too . . . cheerful for a woman cracking under mental strain. Still, Gemma was his best student among the girls by far, and with luck would develop a little more range as she worked with the part.

  “Very good, Gemma. Okay, Susie, do you think you can do what Gemma did? You’re at a bit of a disadvantage having never taken drama before.”

  In answer, Susie jumped straight into the scene, rubbing her hands as though truly bloodstained and speaking the words haltingly, moving her head and arms as though haunted. Even her tone carried a hint of a Scottish lilt. When she was finished, the class just stared at her.

  Once Paul recovered from shock at his daughter’s surprisingly good acting, he realized that he had seen Susie’s performance before. It was a relatively decent imitation of Jeanette Nolan’s role as Lady Macbeth from the 1948 film version of Orson Welles’s Macbeth. What Susie lacked in experience, she made up for by doing her homework.

  “Than
k you, Susie,” he said through the megaphone. “Next is Banquo, Macbeth’s companion whom he murders.”

  Scene 9: ’Twould Have Anger’d Any Heart Alive

  Paul was relieved to find Susie at home after school. She knew better than to disappear after dropping that bombshell on him in his class. He suspected she had already said something to her mother since supper was waiting when he arrived and Sylvia and Susie were already at the table. Spaghetti, one of Paul’s favourites. He couldn’t remember the last time the three of them had sat down for supper together. It disappointed him that it took a note from the school principal to make it happen.

  Sylvia was unusually talkative, full of vim and vigour about last night’s realtor gathering and how much fun it was.

  “The housing market has been dead for months,” she said. “Getting together for socials is the only excitement we get these days.”

  Susie twisted her fork, collecting a dainty spiral of spaghetti dripping with tangy sauce. “Jo-Ann said her dad had a good time.”

  Susie’s friend’s dad was also a realtor. She went on to talk about some clothes Jo-Ann had bought, which led to a discussion of Susie’s shoes, which somehow led back around to the realtor gathering and how to properly freeze leftover spaghetti.

  Paul sat patiently through it all, enjoying his spaghetti and garlic toast. He even opened a bottle of red wine, which he shared with Sylvia.

  When they finished eating, Sylvia said, “I suppose we had better discuss what happened to Susie at school yesterday.”

  “To Susie?” Paul said. “The note I read said Susie started another fight.”

  “Dad! How come I always get the blame?”

  “It takes two people to fight,” Sylvia said.

  Paul waved a hand. “Fine. Fine. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

  “Victoria Whitcomb!” Susie snarled. “She kicked me playing soccer. Again. So I kicked her back.”

  Paul had heard all this before. From Susie. From Sylvia. From Principal Winston. From Angela White, Susie’s gym instructor. And from Victoria’s parents. He knew that what he was about to say, Susie had heard before. Why hadn’t it sunk in? Maybe he needed to be more blunt.

  “Victoria Whitcomb,” Paul said, “couldn’t kick a soccer ball if it was the size of a Volkswagen.”

  Both Sylvia and Susie stared at him for several moments then burst out laughing.

  “I can’t believe you said that!” Sylvia whispered.

  “I never would say that,” Paul said. “Not on school property, anyway. But I’m not speaking right now as a teacher. I’m speaking as a parent. And as a parent, I’m suggesting that Victoria Whitcomb has no business playing soccer or any other sport, for that matter. She kicked you, Susie, because she missed kicking the ball. She always misses kicking the ball. She tries. Dear Lord, she tries. But it’s just not in her. She’s a menace—to the other players and to herself.”

  Susie was still smiling at her dad’s diatribe when Paul dropped the other shoe.

  “You know this as well as I do, so you should know better than to kick Victoria back. That is why you get the blame.”

  Susie dropped her smile. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean to kick her. It just hurt and I got angry and I struck back without thinking.”

  “Did you tell Ms. White that?” Paul asked.

  Susie shook her head. “I just told her that Victoria kicked me first.”

  “The school should have called us in,” Sylvia told Paul. “Or you at least. You work there. They shouldn’t just be able to pull Susie out of P.E. Maybe we should call Mrs. Cadwell. She’ll sort this out.”

  Paul put up his hand again, this time not in defeat. “The last thing I need is to owe Mrs. Cadwell a favour. I’ll sort this out with Winston myself and get Susie back into gym class.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Susie said.

  “What?” Paul and Sylvia spoke at the same time.

  “I liked dad’s class today. I think I want to stick with drama.”

  “Susie,” said Sylvia, “you were never interested before. No matter how much I begged you to take your father’s class.”

  “You begged?” Paul said.

  Sylvia ignored him. “And you’ve always liked sports. You really enjoyed playing basketball last year.”

  “Sports are okay,” Susie said. “But I’ve been there, done that. Watching everyone try out for parts today was fun. And it’s fun pretending that you’re someone else. ‘Out, damned spot!’ And I don’t get to swear playing sports.” She held up both hands. “Kidding. Really, guys.”

  “Well,” said Sylvia. “If you’re sure. Paul, are you okay with this?”

  Paul had to think for a moment. Being pulled out of P.E. and put into drama class—Paul’s drama class—as punishment didn’t say a lot for drama as a subject or Paul as a teacher. And it could scar his daughter with all sorts of stigmas she hadn’t even thought about yet. But he couldn’t very well say any of this and expect agreement.

  “If that’s what Susie wants,” he said, “I’ll support it. Besides, I’m delighted to finally have my daughter in one of my classes.”

  Scene 10: Receive What Cheer You May

  Paul sat with his finger poised over the Enter key. He was tempted to turn off his computer and announce the cast assignments in class tomorrow. But he also knew that most theatre companies these days no longer took the time to notify actors of audition results individually. Instead, they posted the cast list in the most impersonal way possible. If Paul was going to teach his students how theatre worked in the real world, he was going to have to play by the real world’s rules, no matter how cold they were.

  He also knew that when his students saw the list, there would be tears, arguments, fits, and for many, relief. It was impossible to make everyone happy, especially when so many of the auditions were . . . not very good.

  There were too many roles for boys and not enough for girls. Many roles had no more than four lines, though that didn’t stop half his class from auditioning for them.

  Paul himself wasn’t happy with many of the assignments. After two years of drama coaching, most of the students were still a long way from being even remotely employable as even the lowest of low-rent actors. But he supposed that was true for all high schools. If you were serious about being an actor, you had to enrol in an acting school, something Paul should have done himself when he’d had the chance. If he had, he might now be on the stage instead of behind it. But it was too late for regrets now.

  He was surprised and pleased at how many students had tried out for the major roles. Even his daughter had auditioned for Lady Macbeth, the biggest surprise of all. It was said that seventeen is an age of change, when teens begin putting their childhoods behind them and look toward becoming adults. Maybe he was seeing that in his own classroom. Perhaps some of his students would make him proud with this play. He knew his daughter already had.

  “Let the chips fall where they may,” Paul said. He closed his eyes and lowered his finger. When he opened his eyes again, the cast list, along with understudy and stagehand assignments, was posted on the third-year drama homework page. The list included two ushers who were guaranteed a D for the class if they slept their way through the term. He closed this thought in true Shakespearian style. “Tomorrow is another day.”

  As he turned out his office light to go join Sylvia in the living room and watch some TV, he heard a muffled whoop emanate from his daughter’s bedroom. Paul couldn’t keep a smile from brightening his face.

  Scene 11: What’s Done Cannot Be Undone

  Thursday found Principal Winston sitting behind his desk, a cold fire simmering in his piggy eyes and perspiration beading down his cheeks. “I understand you haven’t changed your mind about the play.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” Paul said. “Susie was in a fight on Tuesday, and instead of calling her mother and myself to meet with her guidance counsellor, you expelled Susie from P.E. and assigned her to my drama class.”


  Winston’s expression didn’t change. “You were told the last time your daughter was caught fighting that if it happened again, she would be expelled from P.E.”

  Paul shook his head. “I could argue that what happened with Victoria Whitcomb wasn’t a fight but I won’t. I can see that your mind is made up. Ashcroft High has lost a star athlete. So be it. I’m here about your putting my daughter in my drama class. You know that she has no interest in drama, just as you know that she would rather die than sit in one of her own father’s classes. This is cruel and unusual punishment, and I demand that you remove Susie from my class immediately.”

  A slow smile spread across Winston’s face. “I could do that.” He leaned forward over his desk. “In fact, I will do that. If . . .” He left the word hanging for a long moment. “If you abandon Macbeth and choose a play that will get Elizabeth Cadwell off my back.”

  Paul leaned forward and rested his hands on the top of the visitor chair in front of the principal’s desk. “This isn’t even about Susie. It’s about me.” He straightened and, taking a cue from the gorgon lady, wagged a finger in Winston’s face. “This is low, even for you.”

  Winston reached across his desk and slapped Paul’s finger away. “I’m the principal and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the peace. And right now, the biggest threat to peace in this school is that blasted play. Have you considered Death of a Salesman?”

  Paul stepped away from the desk and opened the door to the outer office. “I won’t give in to blackmail,” he said loudly, ensuring that Mrs. Kennedy and anyone in the waiting area would hear. “And we did Death of a Salesman two years ago.” He slammed the door and leaned against it.

  The three students sitting in the waiting area looked at him with blank expressions. Mrs. Kennedy, sitting behind the secretary’s desk, nodded and offered a thin-lipped smile. “I thought your class did a bold performance of Death of a Salesman.”